Transport committee  I don't now how much is addressed specifically inside the bill, but I believe there is an intent to try to create this transparency. I still think we're miles behind other countries. When you look at what the United States does in terms of transparency around supply chains, the movement of cargo and things like that, their companies can respond and be much more nimble in understanding where pinch points are and how to create a new product to deal with that pinch point.

Transport committee  I'm going to the root of your question. The supply chain vulnerability is really around capacity, and we certainly believe that the right transparency around data would help us to build capacity and re-engineer supply chains. One of the areas we looked at in partnership with McMaster University was the volume of truck traffic between the Midwest of the United States and southern Ontario, and how much of that could be converted to marine.

Transport committee  I certainly believe that, under the management of the St. Lawrence Seaway, there are parcels of property that would benefit from being managed as a port authority. Port authorities have a different mandate. They're mandated to be economic drivers. We have the ability to invest in those assets and be self-sustaining.

Transport committee  I'll jump on that quickly. I think the inland terminal idea, which we really do applaud and support, would allow ports to grow their capacity. As Canada grows, we need to increase that capacity. Quite often, ports become surrounded by residential and commercial developments. By being able to hold cargo and facilitate trade at inland destinations....

Transport committee  Thanks. I'll start. Yes, it's an error of omission. It's very interesting, of course, that when the bill was described to us, it talked about an encouragement for further collaboration amongst ports, but there was nothing inside of the bill that actually supported that claim or that encouragement.

Transport committee  Thanks. We don't believe there's anything inside Bill C-33 that improves our access to capital. There's a commitment around additional reporting, which suggests that there should be.... That additional reporting should make the process of changing borrowing limits and accessing that capital more streamlined and easier.

Transport committee  That's correct. I think that growing the company is valuable for us, but the most important thing is making sure we can deliver additional capacity and sustainable supply chains. When we can't access capital to be able to do that, that hurts all Canadians and it results in inflation or shutdown of supply chains.

Transport committee  Yes. Right now, we can't bring an uncleared container into any port in the Great Lakes, which prevents our ability to actually use marine transportation instead of ground transportation. The advantage of marine is that, as was discussed, it's probably the greenest form of transportation.

Transport committee  Thanks, Mr. Badawey. We certainly believe that the exercise of putting together the financial plans is worthwhile. In most cases, we get positive feedback on what those financial plans look like and how we want to allocate capital in the future. Where I think the limitation comes in is that the financial plan is submitted, but then there's no response to that financial plan to say, “Okay, how can we enable you in terms of having the right capital to execute on that plan?”

Transport committee  Thank you. Yes, I think it is a very fair question. I think that in a perfect world we would certainly not have prescribed borrowing limits and it would be driven by what the markets would be willing to loan against the assets. I think we're in an interesting situation, in that if we ever went into an insolvency situation, I suppose there might be blowback to Transport Canada.

Transport committee  Yes, we've looked at it, not exactly from a cost perspective but on how many man-hours it would take, and we believe it would take probably two individuals—

Transport committee  Is that better?

Transport committee  I'm sorry. I moved it up to my head. What we really looked at was how much the additional burden on our staff would be, and we believe that for the Hamilton-Oshawa Port Authority to fulfill all of the obligations, we would have to add probably two additional employees.

Transport committee  The ports across the country would probably prefer nothing at all. However, I think there's probably a good way to address it and still have some oversight. One of the challenging areas is that as you're entering into projects and you're working with customers, stakeholders and port users, the uncertainty of when you're actually going to be able to commit to a project really makes it difficult to provide the best service possible to Canadians and users and to create supply chains.

Transport committee  Thank you very much. Good evening to the members of the committee. I'm pleased to be here both as the president and CEO of the Hamilton-Oshawa Port Authority and as the incoming chair of the Association of Canadian Port Authorities. Many of my messages will be reconfirming the information you just heard from Daniel.